Try to Get the Story

    I always try to get the story from people when I purchase a helmet off of them, but in 95% of the cases there is no story to go along with the helmet.  My theory on that is that most of these helmets are valuable (not in terms of dollars) to the people who own them and those people are not the ones selling these helmets on eBay.  The other rare helmets that show up have been picked up at flea markets, garage sales, or just in passing and their is no personal value to those individuals.  Anyway, getting back to some purchases, I would say my next steal would have been the Senators helmet at right.  Like I said earlier, I can't give away all of my secrets (I'm talking about the types of searches I do on eBay when I speak of secrets.) but this little beauty popped up one day on eBay back in 2004 if I remember right.  It was obvious that there weren't a lot people looking at it because when it came down to the final day of the auction it was still going for about $15.00.  I watched it, placed my bid, and walked away with it for a little under $50.  That has always shocked me because at that time this was the only helmet like this one on eBay that I had ever seen.  Of course, I believe that there are more like this out there (and a few of these have appeared), but again, it's one of only a few that I've seen.  For its age, the helmet is kind of cheaply made.  Most helmets that I pull from the 60's are made of fairly strong plastic, but this one is really kind of thin and flimsy, nonetheless, it is still a great find.

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